On August 13, 1898, the US and Spain staged a mock battle in Intramuros, the walled City of Manila. The US “won.” A few months later Spain sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. This was the prelude to the bloody annexation of the Philippines by the US. Amado Hernandez’s poem “Kung Tuyo Na Ang Luha Mo, Aking Bayan” is from the book “Isang Dipang Langit.” It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to translate the poem. My free translation is a work in progress.
Continue reading “Amado Hernandez poem translation”Month: July 2022
The Japanese Soldier in my Hometown
My cousin Letty C. Espinellli wrote about a Japanese soldier we knew during the early 1940s. Here is her piece:
Continue reading “The Japanese Soldier in my Hometown”Diary 7/8/22
It was my first time to take the bus to Manhattan since the pandemic. I realized that I was no longer used to the urban setting, the crowds felt strange, and the dirt and traffic actually grated on me. Living in the foothills of the Appalachian or in Lake Harmony in the Poconos in Pennsylvania has made me more sensitive to my environment: I notice the noise, the air and the changes in the climate and nature, where the sun rises and sets and the phases of the moon.
Continue reading “Diary 7/8/22”Diary 6/5/22
On my way to Boston I drove through the empty streets of Sandy Hook, Newtown, Connecticut after the massacre of 20 children and 6 adults in 2012. I could not describe the grief that I saw in the air from the victims who were killed so mercilessly in cold blood. It was the same grief I saw when I visited the town of Balingiga in the Philippines where US soldiers were ordered by General Smith to kill every Filipino over 10 years old in 1902. It was also the same grief I saw when I visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Hanoi during the 50th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre when 504 unarmed older men, women and children were killed by the US military.
Continue reading “Diary 6/5/22”Saving the Sequoias
I was scrolling down the files when I saw this photograph of two giant tamarind trees just outside the Tao Garden in Doi Saket, Chiang Mai, Thailand. I do not how old they are. Perhaps 100 years? I also have a photo somewhere of 2 gingko trees in the Shaolin Temple in Loyang, Hunan Province that were, according to the plaque, at least 1000 years old.
Continue reading “Saving the Sequoias”